On November 4, over a hundred people gathered in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce to stand in solidarity with Nicholas Gibbs’ family and demand justice and accountability for his murder. Gibbs, a 23-year-old Black father, was shot five times and killed by the Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) on August 21. The vigil, organized by Rest to Resist, started with an opening prayer by Kahnawake elders, followed by a land acknowledgement by the Black Indigenous Harm Reduction Alliance. Gibbs’ family led the procession from Trenholme Park to the location where Gibbs was killed. Erma Gibbs, Nicholas Gibbs’ mother, spoke at the event of the failure of police as first responders and asserted: “the police didn’t have the right to kill my son.” On October 30, the Gibbs family announced that they would be suing the city for over one million dollars in moral and punitive damages. The lawsuit accuses the police of using excessive force and not taking into account Gibbs’ emotional distress. This decision follows the release of a cell phone video taken by a witness at the scene of the murder. The video shows the police making no effort to de-escalate the situation once they arrived. Instead, they yelled at Gibbs in French to “stop,” even though he did not speak French. The officers then proceeded to shoot him five times, the last one in his back.

The lawsuit also alleges that police officers at the scene illegally took witness statements and asked their supervisors to review and approve them before the arrival of the Bureau des enquêtes indépendantes (BEI; Bureau of Independent Investigations). The BEI is an independent body responsible for investigating police shootings. The lawsuit denounces the “unlawful and intentional wrongful acts” perpetrated by the police. Quebec laws state that officers should “withdraw themselves from the scene immediately after an incident and, independently of each other, write up their version of the events that led to the incident under investigation.” After this, the BEI should be notified “without delay.”

Not everyone has the privilege of feeling safe in the presence of police. Throughout Canada, Black and Indigenous people are disproportionately killedby police officers, and the rate of police shootings has doubled over the last 20 years. In a white supremacist and ableist culture, marginalized communities are grossly overrepresented in cases of police violence, and are often in more danger once police arrive. We must remember that in many situations, calling the police is the wrong choice. Unarmed mediation, community protection, restorative justice, economic justice, direct democracy, and decriminalization are all propositions for a “cop-free world,” and enforcing these alternatives instead of calling the police could help prevent future tragedies.